WRHA admits it will have authority to reassign workers

Jan 29, 2019

Last week, MGEU raised the alarm about the
government’s real objectives in forcing a merger of the home care and
facility-based health care aide workforces. Employers want the ability to
assert management rights to reassign workers between facilities and between
home care and facilities.

Today, the
WRHA commented on the MGEU’s concerns, but failed to provide any meaningful
reassurance to health care workers that this is not their true goal.

The WRHA
said they do not intend to reassign workers against their will, but
they also acknowledged that employers will have the authority to reassign
qualified workers if they want to.

The WRHA
also said the rules governing how workers would be reassigned will be up for
negotiation after the health care representation votes.

“In effect,
the WRHA is conceding they have the authority to do this, but that health care
workers should just trust them,” said MGEU Director of Negotiations Sheila Gordon. “This
is exactly what MGEU said last week – that the new merged and expanded
bargaining unit will make it possible for employers to reassign health care
workers between facilities and home care, and that health care unions will need
to bargain hard for provisions that would guarantee workers a choice about
where they work.

No current
collective agreement in health care provides a guarantee against this kind of
mobility, and the new merged and expanded bargaining unit will make this a much
greater risk. Any union that says they can guarantee such provisions is not being
straight with members.

“MGEU will
bargain hard for protections that would give workers a choice about where they
work in the future, but the first step to winning such protections is to recognize the
threat and to be straight with members about the risk,” said Gordon.

The MGEU
backed up its concerns by releasing to the media slides from a presentation made
by the Provincial Health Labour Relations Secretariat. This presentation was
intended to provide the employers’ rationale for wanting to merge the home care
and facility-based health care aide bargaining unit. The new merged bargaining
unit was presented as a solution to:

“escalating
need for staff to transition between community and facility”

“issues of
bargaining unit work when home care provides services within the facilities”

“vacancy
rates within the home care program”

In their
presentation, employer representatives did not hide their true objectives in
merging these bargaining units. They told all unions it was about eliminating
barriers to mobility between home care and facilities.